‘Hey!’ The guard ran into the bathroom - just as Eddie’s fingertips reached the scissors. The Englishman snatched them up and clenched them in his fist. ‘Get back down!’
‘Ow, for fuck’s sake!’ Eddie gasped as the man kicked him. ‘I’ve been like this all day, I’m bursting! I need a piss!’
The guard laughed. ‘You’re in the right place!’ Still chuckling, he checked the ropes again. Satisfied they were still tightly fastened, he went back to his seat.
‘Are you okay?’ Nina asked quietly.
‘He didn’t help my backache, but I’ve got the scissors.’ He fumbled them round in his hand, opening the blades as wide as they would go and pressing one against the rope. ‘Might take a while, though.’
He began sawing. The small blade and the cramping of his hand made it slow going, but the rope’s strands eventually started to fray and split. Ten minutes passed; twenty. The guard remained engrossed in the race, Virtanen involved in a close battle to hold the lead. Half an hour gone. The race was over a quarter done, Osir and Shaban’s return drawing closer . . .
Eddie let out a small grunt. ‘Eddie?’ whispered Nina. ‘Did you do it?’
‘Yeah,’ he replied, keeping the scissors hooked on one finger as he tugged at the rope with his thumb. The severed loop came loose; he slipped his wrist free, then quickly unfastened his other hand. ‘Problem is, we’re still trapped in a toilet by a man with a gun. Can you get him in here?’
‘I’ll try.’
Nina lifted her leg again, letting out a strained gasp. The guard stood, annoyed by the interruption. ‘I told you to stay still!’ he said as he entered the bathroom.
‘Please,’ she said through a mask of pain, ‘my leg hurts so much, I can’t stand it any more!’
‘You won’t have to for much longer,’ he said with a sardonic smile, shoving her back into a kneeling position. He examined the ropes round her wrists, then bent to check Eddie’s bonds.
They weren’t there.
Eddie’s hand shot up with savage force and stabbed the scissors point first into his eye.
That the blades were less than an inch long below the hinge didn’t matter - the entire length of the scissors disappeared into the guard’s skull. The pain and shock froze him in place - long enough for Eddie to roll sideways and grab him by his shirt, yanking him downwards. There was a horrible crack as the man’s head struck the flush lever, and he collapsed twitching on to the lavatory.
Eddie pushed the guard face first into the swirling bowl. Collecting the MP7, he quickly untied Nina. ‘Flushed with success,’ he said, grinning.
She rolled her eyes. ‘Is he dead?’
‘After all that? I hope so.’ The flush cycle ended, the water turning pink round the man’s part-submerged head. Eddie watched for several seconds to make sure no bubbles rose from his mouth or nose, then checked the MP7. It was fully loaded: twenty rounds. ‘This is more like it - no pissing about with revolvers like we’re still in the fucking nineteenth century.’
Nina gratefully stood, rubbing her aching legs. ‘What’s the plan?’
‘Same as last night. Get back to shore, find Macy, find this pyramid. And shoot anybody who gets in our way. Sound okay?’
‘I’d prefer it without the shooting part, but otherwise, yeah.’ She went into the cabin, retrieved her possessions from the desk where they had been dumped, and was about to go to the door when she changed her mind and instead crossed to the zodiac. Osir and others had been working on it through the night; more notes were scattered about. She picked up a photo of the entire relief and shoved it in a pocket. ‘Just in case,’ she told Eddie, who had recovered his own belongings and was now waiting impatiently near the door. ‘I don’t think Osir’ll give us another chance to look at it.’
‘Still think we should just smash the thing,’ he said, checking the corridor. ‘Okay, the quickest way down’ll be jumping off the balcony to the rear deck. Are you up for that?’
‘I’ll be okay,’ she said, touching his head. The only treatment he had been given after being shot was a large adhesive bandage stuck roughly over the cut; it was now dark with dried blood. That at least meant the bleeding had stopped, but the wound still needed attention. ‘What about you?’
‘I’ll live. Good job it didn’t hit my face - it would’ve ruined my good looks.’ A grin creased his battle-worn visage; she smiled back. ‘You ready?’
She nodded. Eddie entered the corridor, quickly moving to the glass door. A couple of Osir’s bikini-clad girls were sunbathing below, a trio of the yacht’s crew with them, watching the race on a flatscreen TV. Two of the men were armed. ‘Well, strolling casually to the boats is out.’ He raised the gun. ‘On three, we both jump. Soon as you land, run for whichever boat’s in the water, start it, and do not stop for anything. They’re going to kill us anyway - if they catch us again we won’t get a second chance. All right?’
‘All right,’ Nina reluctantly agreed. ‘I’ll tell you something, though.’
‘What?’
‘I’m not depressed any more.’
‘Yeah, nothing like a death threat to pep you up, is there?’ They kissed, then Eddie pushed the door open. ‘Okay, one, two, three - go!’
They burst out into the hot Mediterranean sun and vaulted the railing.
The drop was almost nine feet; Nina’s landing was painfully hard, making her fall. Eddie fared better, dropping into a frog-like crouch before springing back up. One of the women shrieked, the other staring at him with dull surprise. The men jumped up, the armed ones fumbling for their guns.
Eddie’s MP7 clattered, two silenced bursts stitching lines of bloody holes across the pair’s chests.
Noise from behind—
He spun and fired another burst at another man beneath the balcony, a gun spinning from his hands as he was thrown back against the blood-splattered bulkhead.
Nina got up. ‘You okay?’ Eddie asked. She nodded. ‘Good. Get to the boats.’ As she set off, he covered the remaining people. The shrieking woman had progressed to full-blown screams, her companion still regarding him with blank-eyed bewilderment. The unarmed man was eyeing the dead crewmen’s guns. ‘Can you all swim?’
The responses from the trio were in the affirmative. ‘Good. You’ve got three seconds to start!’ He waved his gun at the yacht’s side. They got the message and jumped overboard.
He ran after Nina, pointing the gun back at the yacht’s superstructure as he reached the stairs to the dock. Another green-jacketed man appeared, pulling the charging handle on his MP7 - only to take a burst from Eddie’s gun and crash over a lounger. Knowing his weapon was down to its last few rounds, Eddie dropped it and snatched up one of the dead men’s guns as he went past.
Nina checked the boats, not liking what she found. Both speedboats had been winched out of the water, the only floating options for escape being jet skis. ‘Eddie, I hope you know how to ride these things, ’cause I don’t have a clue!’
‘Just start one!’ He fired a few shots to force a crewman back into the ship, then jumped down to join Nina. ‘I’ll drive!’
She started the engine, looking in concern at a prominent warning sticker about the danger from the little craft’s powerful underwater jet blast. ‘It says we should be wearing wetsuits.’
‘Yeah, and we should be wearing life jackets too, but we’ll have to make do!’ He vaulted aboard in front of her. ‘Take the gun, and don’t fall off!’
She clutched the MP7 and gripped his waist tightly as he twisted the throttle, sending the jet ski blasting away from the yacht in a plume of spray.
20
Osir stood at the window of the VIP box, face almost pressed against the glass as the race leaders screamed past - with Mikko Virtanen fronting the pack. ‘Yes!’ he cried, pumping his fist. It was only OIG’s second year as primary sponsor of what had previously been the second-tier Monarch team, but the results already spoke for themselves - and with a win at Monaco, the most prestigious race of all, the publicity boost for the Osirian Temple would be beyond measure.